How to Set a Positive Vibe and Tone on Your Team
Whether your season just ended or you’re preparing for spring kickoff, the end of the year is an ideal time for coaches to pause and reflect on what’s gone well, what hasn’t, and what you can change in the future.
While it might be tempting to focus on the number of wins or losses, it’s important to consider the bigger story behind those numbers: how effectively your team supports each other and works together. Whether you coach a team sport like lacrosse or a sport where athletes train together but often compete as individuals, like track and field, promoting team bonding can have lasting effects. Stronger teamwork and camaraderie between athletes can lead to better performance and overall athlete well-being in sport and beyond.
Read on for three strategies to help you set a positive tone on your team and promote team bonding from day one.
Strategy 1:
Understand Your Team’s Climate
The first step is to pause and reflect. What’s going well on your team? Where do you see issues or room for improvement? Thoughtfully and honestly answering questions about your coaching style, communication, and athlete interactions can help you better understand specific actions you can take to strengthen or improve your team’s well-being
Use our Understanding Team Climate tool to help guide you as you reflect on how your athletes are behaving towards each other, how your coaching style might be positively or negatively impacting them, and more.
Strategy 2:
Create Positive Team Bonding Rituals
After you’ve assessed your team’s climate, consider ways you can serve as a leader beyond drawing up game plans. Team bonding rituals and traditions help athletes feel connected and supported. When coaches take the time to cultivate these positive rituals at the start of the season, their teams work better together during practice and competition.
To create these positive rituals, start by having conversations with your athletes about their experience on the team so far or, if they’re new, what they’re nervous about. When you lead discussions like these, your team recognizes that you care about them as athletes and as people, that you care about the values of the team, and about making sure everyone feels respected and heard.
Use these prompts at the start of the season to set a positive tone and promote bonding.
Strategy 3:
Watch Out for Negative or Harmful Conduct
Advocating for respectful team rituals is important. But equally important is watching out for negative or harmful conduct, such as hazing.
Hazing involves conduct that may abuse, degrade, intimidate, or put a person in danger in order to join a group. Athletes use hazing as a condition of members being socially accepted by the team, but no one can consent to hazing—even if they appear willing to participate. Hazing can take many different forms, from acts that involve contact (like beating someone up) to non-contact acts (like keeping someone from food, sleep, or water).
While hazing might look like team bonding on the outside, in reality it can reduce athletes’ self-confidence, misuse power dynamics between athletes, and erode trust and respect among teammates.
In short, hazing does the opposite of positive team bonding rituals. Bonding rituals that are positive, like cheering on every teammate or gathering pre-race for a team dinner, make each athlete feel supported and included.
Key Takeaways
The new year is an opportunity for change and growth—and for coaches to set a new vibe and tone on their team. By leading healthy discussions around appropriate inclusion and making sure everyone feels welcome, you can instill a healthy, positive vibe and set your team up for success.
Explore more ways you can support your athletes. Learn how to create inclusive sport environments and check out tips for leading with positivity.